Paul McKeever’s Minimal Maxims and Bon Arrows, volume 1, issue 3

I, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Any sufficiently rational individual is indistinguishable from a wizard.

A kindness paid to the worthy kills none, but to the unworthy kills all.

While raising the flag of freedom, be willing and prepared to see it at half-mast.

Paul McKeever’s Minimal Maxims and Bon Arrows, volume 1, issue 2

Having joined the many who purchased a large tome on the case for atheism, he realized: the joke’s onus.

I think in Canada, therefore, he is.

Objectivism: The flower of freedom springs only from the soil of reality.
Libertarianism: The flower of freedom is cut from silk.

It’s never the economy, stupid.

Paul McKeever's Minimal Maxims and Bon Arrows, volume 1, issue 1

If you set out to change someone’s mind, first ensure that he has one.

The hollowing of trees follows the hollowing of heads.

Praise to hate, condemn to love, refrain from judgment to feel nothing at all.

Every mind is a woman, every truth is a man.

Freedom versus Freedumb

Over on the National Post’s Full Comment blog, Gerry Nicholls has published what he wishes to be the “hidden agenda” of the Conservative Party of Canada, post election (should they win a majority). One of his wish list items is to “introduce free market principles into [Canada's socialist health care] system”. He seeks a contradiction, of course (i.e., a “free market” in a state-imposed monopoly), but the mere mention of the term “free market” spurred individualist and collectivist readers to start into the old “debate” about the meaning of words like “liberty” and “freedom”. Read more

Green Turns to Brown: "Zeitgeist", "Not Normal Times", and BS

With gas prices up at around C$1.35 per litre, the release a week and a half ago of Stéphane Dion’s “Green Shift” plan to impose more taxes on middle and upper income earners is being rejected. You can see it in letters to the editor, you can read it on blogs. And the left has been left with little ability to respond to the plan’s assessment as a failure.

Of those who are neutral or positive about The Green Shift, virtually none are defending its actual content. Doing so would expose it for what it is: a proposal for a dramatic shift of earnings, from those who earn to those who do not. Instead, we are getting spirited sermons about how “green” is a freight train that cannot be stopped. The psychological strategy is obvious enough: if a proposal is too irrational and destructive to sell on its merits, tell people that no matter what the proposal is, the cultural momentum in favour of it is too great to stop its implementation.

Here are today’s disgustingly transparent examples. Read more

Just Registered: Reason's Harvest…dot COM

I am happy to announce that, today, I registered the domain name reasonsharvest.com. That domain’s temporary home page will be replaced over the coming weeks as I approach an as-yet not determined launch date. However, in what follows, I provide a little background about why I have registered the site. Read more

An Open Letter to Premier McGuinty Re: "Psychics" and the Laws of Ontario

June 19, 2008

Hon. Dalton McGuinty
Premier
Main Legislative Building
Room 281, Queen’s Park
Toronto, Ontario
M7A 1A1

Dear Premier McGuinty:

Re: “Psychics”, “Reasonable Grounds”, and the Case of Colleen and Victoria Leduc

Like many Ontarians, I am shocked to hear news reports concerning the case of Ms. Colleen Leduc and her daughter, Victoria, who suffers from autism. Read more

Meridianfrost as Jim Taggart: Contrived Laughter in Lieu of Rational Counter-argument

I find it difficult to bring myself to watch shows like the Daily Show. Don’t get me wrong, some of the content on that show is quite funny. However, much too much of what today passes for “comedy” (especially on that show) consists of little more than running a clip of someone, then looking into the camera and either laughing or smiling. Read more

Just the Tax Ma'am

The National Post’s Colby Cosh today wrote a column in which he takes for granted the idea that wealth needs to be redistributed to save the environment from…well…something, and plunges into discussing which is better: a cap and trade system, or a carbon tax.

I replied as follows: Read more

Reason and Freedom vs. The Liberty Summer Seminar

I recently posted The One Way to Defeat a Rational Argument, which was about the importance of speaking Read more

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